The Animal House approach to college career development

Sitting on an airplane for three hours on my way home to see my father, I found the ultimate inspiration for my upcoming talk on “LinkedIn and College Studets” in the form of that classic film, Animal House.

As I was visualizing my speech, I began to see snippets of the first movie that John Belushi starred in during his short-lived career. (Mind you, these were the G-rated versions of the movie.)

So, I began to focus my talk prep on four of the characters of the movie with Kent “Flounder” Dorfman as the classic freshman. The “Flounder” is like his fraternity nickname. He’s not sure where he wants to go with his life.

Yet, college students like the hypothetical Dorfman can begin their academic year by setting up a basic LinkedIn program. I think it’s a positive start to set up a summary with something like: “I’m starting college at Faber and I’m not sure of what I want to study. I’m thinking that I want to help people, and I’m hoping that I can find a student or community organization that can help me focus my next three years of school.”

I think students can change their LinkedIn profile with a change in their summary and add some information in their experience section. For example, Larry “Pinto” Kroger could write this during his sophomore year: “I’ve found that I like to write as a profession. I want to find a publication or media that will allow me to write for them….” on his summary. ( By the way, the real “Pinto” became the editor of the National Lampoon.)

For his experience section, Kroger could have added: “I served as the pledge chairman of my fraternity. In addition to serving as the logistic person for all of our parties, I also work for the Daily Faberian as their assistant features editor.”

According to my host for my first speech, my target audience are juniors and seniors. I think that Mandy Pepperidge serves as a good example for them because she’swas an officer in the Faber interfraternity council. A hypothetical “Mandy” could write something like: “After a summer interning for Senator Robert Jones, I know that I want to learn more about politics as a career.”

Just like the Tom Hulce character, Mandy could add more information about her many student roles in her LinkedIn profile. For example, she could write: “As the executive secretary for the Faber Interfraternity Council, I have learned how to coordinate the flow of information between my sorority and the administration.”

I’m going to end my talk by using the Tim Matheson “Otter” character as my final example of how college students can expand their social media job marketing. A modern day version of this character would write something like this in his senior year of college: “I’m narrowing my choices between medical or law school, so I welcome advise from professionals in those industries about the benefits of both careers.”

I hope that the students in my first talk will understand that their academic careers needs a balanced focus on building a network of college-based connections while having a little fun as well. After all, everyone needs at least one toga party during his college years.